Renny: So far I'm only actually in contact with one reviewer, and he/she has already read them, but for some reason I'm getting the feeling that this fic isn't exactly as well-read as it could be.

Green: You do realise that most of the reviews from Redemption were repeat reviewers, right? And most of them reviewed every chapter or so, and you had fifty-odd chapters?

Renny: Yeah I know, but I got five reviews for the first chapter- and I've updated twice in the last two or three weeks and no one except that one reviewer has even hinted at reading the damn things. I'm not being a whiny bitch or anything, I just wanna know that people're reading it so I can keep track of who likes it and what kinda stuff makes sense (not to mention the fact that I want some people to guess at the name thing for Rena's fake Contest name).

Green: And you can't exactly do all that without reviews, right?

Renny: Exactly!

Green: . . . I'll let you off the hook. Someone review so she'll shut up. Renny doesn't own pokemon.

Renny: On with the show!

OOOOOO

"So wait, the pokemon go around saving others in teams of five, and most of what they do is completely illegal?"

"Yeah. Though sometimes they do more- or less- than saving other pokemon."

"Right, you said they explored places too."

"Uh-huh. There was this one episode where Team Brine explored this massive underground magma cavern thing, and they found a giant stone room filled with Fire and Sun Stones."

"Huh."

"I know, right? If it was live-action, I would have been wondering where they even got the Stones from, but it's an anime so . . ."

"Excuse me!" Twin snapped.

Green and Ice looked up.

"Be silent." she went on angrily. "Not all of us wish to hear of this . . . an-ee-may."

"I think you'd like it though," Toni said, from a few feet in front of them. "Cus there's a team of Flying and Dragon types who call themselves Team Limit, as in like, the sky's the limit or something. The leader's this badass Pidgeot who-"

"Isn't your favourite Team Deadswitch?" Green interrupted.

"Well, yeah, but I keep track of the other ones as well."

"Deadswitch?" Nameless repeated, looking confused. His leaf swayed slightly as he glanced between his Trainer and Green.

"Team of Ghost types, and the leader's a Manectric called Switch- hence the name." Green explained.

"Makes sense, I guess?"

"There's also Team Flora, whose leader is a one-eyed Meganium with a temper to rival a Charizard's Blast Burn!" Toni shouted, jumping into the air and spinning slightly. She almost lost her balance and only managed to straighten up when Faceless head butted her gently in the back. "Thanks, Facey." Toni said.

"No problem!" Faceless replied. "So what's this Team Limit like, anyway?"

"Well . . ."

Green wasn't entirely sure how the conversation had started.

They were walking through Route 30, nearing 31 and coming towards Dark Cave in hopes of finding an interesting pokemon in there (Toni wasn't particularly bothered, she had three/four already, but Green did sort of need to catch up).

Naturally, Toni- not liking any silences she deemed as 'awkward' despite the fact that most of them weren't- had started chatting the second she could, and somehow some random offhand comment that Ice made about her being a living reference sheet made her launch into a would-have-been long speech about the awesomeness of Pokemon Underground.

Green had taken over, because Toni had started going on about her own opinions and was totally ignoring the fact that none of the pokemon besides Sparkless knew who the characters were, or the plot, or even anything about the show at all.

Like he'd said, he wasn't sure how she'd gotten Pokemon Underground from Ice saying she was a living reference sheet. She was weird like that, made the weirdest connections in the most random things ever.

One time Toothless had said something about a Skitty going nuts on the news (it only got on the news because England apparently had nothing better to report) and somehow Toni had made a connection between that and the world's largest Sunkern.

They were still wondering how.

The weather was just about as reliable as Toni's linking skills, so half an hour later it was raining and pouring like hell. Green didn't particularly care, but everyone else was complaining.

"Still not seeing what the problem is. I like rain." Green said, after the fifth time that everyone glared at him.

"You have an umbrella." Nameless told him, trying and failing to use his leaf as one.

No, he didn't. All Green had was a psychic shield over his head so he wouldn't get- oh.

Ooooh.

So that was why they were all glaring at him.

Green smiled slightly and extended the psychic shield to cover all of them, and then he seperated it so they all had their own private shield. Wouldn't want to restrict anyone to a ten foot radius or whatever, after all.

"Oh, so you do consider other living beings now and then." Ice snarked.

Green smirked and retracted the psychic shield over his head. The rain hit Ice at full force and he yelped, but quickly recovered because- hello- he was a Water type. It was basically fundamental for him to like rain, or any kind of wetness (stop thinking that. Seriously. He's only twelve).

"Hey, I scouted ahead- there's an opening in the rock face nearby!" Faceless called suddenly. When did she scout ahead? Green needed to start recording how fast the two Pidgeys on the team were.

"Well don't just stand there like total lemons, c'mon!" Toni shouted, dashing off.

She was too quick for Green to react, so he wasn't able to keep her shield over her head- and Toni ended up getting soaked within seconds.

Toni stopped, stared up at the sky, cursed loudly and walked moodily back under her shield.

"That was heroic." Green said.

"Shut up." Toni muttered.

"No, really, it was so heroic. I don't think anyone else in this ragtag group of freaks is as brave or courageous as you are."

"No, really, shut up." Toni snapped back. "Let's just go already."

"Oh I'm sorry, did I upset you?" Green smirked.

"You know what?" Toni suddenly grinned. "Fuck you."

She shoved Green and he fell onto the ground. And out from under his shield. He got soaked as well.

Green gaped at his clothes for a second and then looked up at Toni. He narrowed his eyes and her shield vanished, and his own came back over his head.

Toni shrieked and threw herself at him.

"Ladies and gentlemen, these are the people responsible for stopping nuclear war." Ice commented.

"Maybe they'll get more professional." Nameless suggested.

"Yesterday I caught Toni trying to ice bucket Green while he was asleep."

"We're doomed."

oooo

They found the cave eventually, when Green and Toni stopped getting mud all over themselves. Unfortuntely they couldn't exactly clean themselves, and Green wasn't able to bring made-up stuff (like clean clothes) out of his hammer space yet, only stuff he'd put in there from the real world, so they had to make do with the muddy clothes they had.

Of course, Hopeless was still wondering why they hadn't bothered to pack clothes to begin with.

"We didn't know Cherrygrove didn't have a clothes store." Toni sighed, shaking her Umbreon hat slightly. Ice had decided to stop giving them shit about their apparent immaturity (for now) and had washed that for her, and then Green had gotten it cleaned and dried and whatever in hammer space.

Pity he couldn't do the same for their clothes though.

"Don't you think it would have been a good idea to check this before you came here from- what was it again? England?" Hopeless asked. Toni and Green nodded. "Yeah, see?"

"The good news is we don't need to worry about them getting any worse, I think the sun's coming up soon." Nameless said. He was pretty much keeping watch near the mouth of the cave they were in.

Said cave led into a tunnel which apparently, according to the pokedex map (and the DataLink), led into Dark Cave- but it didn't give any specficics whatsoever. So basically they didn't know where Dark Cave began.

"I would ask how you know this, but is this not a Grass pokemon ability?" Twin asked.

"Yep." Nameless replied. "Some Grass types- for example, my species- can give slightly accurate predictions of the weather based on the movements of the sun. Something something photosynthesis, I think. I don't know exactly how it works, but it does and I don't wanna question it too much."

"I could tell you everything about it." Ice casually mentioned.

"We'd rather have the mystery." Green told him. The Totodile shrugged.

"Suit yourselves. You wanna be clueless, fine." he said.

"Ooooh that's a good name!" Toni cried.

"No, you've already called her Hopeless, we don't need a pokemon called Clueless as well." Green told her.

"Aw."

"Children." Ice muttered.

"You should attempt to be more professional." Twin informed the two Deviants. "If you are the representatives of this . . . city of yours, and your entire species, you would do well to adopt a more professional manner."

"I don't think two twelve year olds can speak for an entire city and species." Toni retorted.

Someone giggled.

Everyone in the cave jerked in surprise, and looked around frantically. It was Faceless who spotted her.

"There." the black-faced Pidgey said, raising a wing to point behind Green.

He turned around and saw a smiling Geodude. She was somehow different to other Geodudes, and he couldn't really place why- and then he looked at her eyes. They were a beautiful purple.

He'd heard about this- some of the Rock Deviants and/or their pokemon had explained it to him. Sometimes you could find a Rock typed pokemon with strangely coloured eyes, and the most common Rock type that was found in was the Onix family, strangely enough.

These Rock types were called Birthstone Rock pokemon, because their eyes would always be the colour of some sort of birthstone. Birthstone Rock pokemon were actually rarer than shiny pokemon.

And there was one right in front of them.

"Holy hell, is that a Birthstone?" Toni breathed. At least she wasn't downplaying the moment like she always was.

"What's a Birthstone?" Hopeless asked.

Ice turned to her and started to whisper, and the other caught wild pokemon listened in.

Although of course, if Toni didn't ruin an amazing moment, that meant Sparkless would do her job for her.

"Oh wow a Birthstone Rock type how cool is this wow wow wow hey what's your name is it Birthstone because that'd be so ironic wow your eyes look like amethysts oh hey guys wasn't there a Golem on Pokemon Ungerground called Amethyst with the same eyes like this what a coincidence!" he cried.

" . . . Is he alright?" the Birthstone Geodude asked.

"No." Green said.

"Yes." Toni said.

The Geodude looked between them and blinked, and she giggled again.

"You don't seem to be able to agree on anything. Does your group argue a lot, or is this just a one-off thing?" she wondered.

"Far as we can tell, we're-"

Sparkless interrupted Green. "Crazy and weird and hilarious and pranky and silly and loud and really really really really really insane?" the Rotom suggested.

"Pranky is not a word." Green muttered.

"It is when Sparkless is talking." Toni corrected him.

"Good point."

"I'm gonna guess 'yes'." the Geodude said, tilting her . . . face?

"You'd be correct in your guess. Hey, kid, you wanted something from Dark Cave, how about her?" Ice said, walking over. Seemed he'd finished explaining the concept of Birthstone Rock types to the others.

Though Nameless didn't seem so happy, because the entire team(s?) had turned to him and were now drilling into him for info. Wow. Maybe they wanted a new perspective. Ice did give out info in a tone that suggested he thought they should already know whatever he was explaining.

"Don't be so blunt!" Green exclaimed.

"Hypocrite."

"No, I just don't wanna advertise that I'm trying to catch something here for a team of literally two pokemon." Green snapped back.

"That's kind of even worse, and you just said it yourself." Toni pointed out. Green glared at her.

"I don't mind." the Geodude suddenly broke in. "Really. I did kinda . . . wanna ask if you were taking applications anyway."

"How do you know what an application is?" Ice asked.

"Seriously?" Green gaped at her. "W-why? I mean, I get that some pokemon do wanna have Trainers and stuff, but . . . um."

"To put it simply, I'm totally bored with this dump." the Geodude explained. "Day in, day out, it's the exact same. Wake up, eat some granite or whatever's on the floor that's edible, slap away some annoying little shits of Zubats, avoid the water near the back, ignore the stupid looks I get whenever I walk by because of my eyes, go to sleep, wake up the next day and do the exact same thing . . . I want something different. And then you guys appeared. I guess Arceus heard me after all."

Okay so, let's not mention that the entire reason he'd been shocked about her appearance had been because of her eyes. The Geodude would probably kill him for it or something.

"Are we gonna do this like we did with Twin?" Toni wondered.

"What?" Green said.

"What?"

"No, what did you say?"

"What?"

"Before that."

"What?"

Green sighed in frustration and Toni smirked at him. Prick. His eyes flashed purple for a second, and he rolled his eyes.

"Probably." he said. "I dunno. Hey, um, do you wanna choose who you want as a Trainer? Cus that's how I got my Pidgey."

"I am not 'your' anything, boy." Twin barked.

" . . . It's how Twin joined the team." he corrected himself.

"Better." Twin nodded, satisfied.

The Geodude blinked, and nodded slowly. She was probably regretting coming anywhere near them at this point. Or she was trying to decide- nope, Green was not gonna read her mind or anything. Besides, it wouldn't tell him much anyway, he could only really read emotions properly.

Maybe he could ask one of the Psychics to teach him how to use telepathy properly . . .

It would certainly help during battles.

"I think I'd like to go with you." the Geodude said, raising a rocky hand to point at Green.

Toni's mouth fell open. "Are you just gonna catch every single one of your new pokemon without a fight? I had to battle Hopeless and Faceless!" she cried unhappily.

"Guess mine are more mellow." Green shrugged.

"The hell we are." Ice snapped.

" . . . Yeah, he's right. Maybe I'm just lucky."

"The hell you are." Ice told him.

"Well I'm sorry, what would you call it then?" Green snapped back.

"We pity you." the Totodile suggested.

Green made a move, intending to show just how much pity he actually needed from Ice, but Toni grabbed his shirt and pulled him back.

"No you don't. Wait until we're miles away from civilisation, okay?" she told him.

"Fine, whatever. So, welcome to my team." Green turned his attention back to the Geodude. "The normal-ish Pidgey is Twin, and the asshole Totodile over there is Ice."

"Can you swim? If not, I suggest you learn quickly." Ice barked.

"My team's the Chikorita over there, he's called Nameless, the Sentret is Hopeless, the black-faced Pidgey is Faceless, and my partner pokemon here is Sparkless." Toni introduced her team, pointing at them in turn.

"Be thankful you did not choose her as your Tamer." Twin said. "You may have received a name such as Rockless."

"I heard uh . . . Sparkless, was it?" At Toni's nod, the Geodude carried on. "Sparkless said something about amethyst."

"Amethyst is a Birthstone Golem from an anime me and Toni like." Green explained. "And she does actually have the same eyes as you, now that I think about it . . . How about that? You wanna be called Amethyst?"

"Sure!" the Birthstone Geodude exclaimed.

He suddenly realised that two out of three of his pokemon were named after characters from the same show. Twin was the exception to his 'theme' or whatever, since she'd given herself a name. Oh well. He didn't mind- she had a cool name anyway, and with such weird pokemon . . .

Oh, speaking of weird pokemon, maybe he should check on that egg. He'd done it yesterday, but briefly- they'd been on the move for most of yesterday so he couldn't exactly get it out of hammer space every three minutes or so.

It had been pretty warm last time, so that meant it was getting close to hatching. And it wasn't because of the warm fire and the imaginary Kangaskhan, because that was a different kind of warmth.

No, the kind of warmth he was on about was a mental one. If all eggs had the same hatching . . . systems, or whatever, the warmth coming from the Togepi's mind meant it was going to hatch soon. Like Green said, he could only really read the emotions of living beings (telepathy was a completely different thing, even if it was slightly easier to do with pokemon than people), so it was easy to tell this sort of stuff.

oooo

"I feel like making some sort of reference." Toni commented, as they went through Violet city's Eastern gate and into the city itself.

"Please don't." Green said.

"Don't worry, I can't think of one . . ."

Green sighed and decided to ignore her. He turned to the pokemon, and saw that the wild-born ones were staring up at the surrounding buildings in awe.

Well, Violet city wasn't much to look at. No offence to the locals of course, but it was more like a large town than an actual city- not like Goldenrod or Lumiose in Kalos, anyway. It might have had something to do with the Sprout Tower somewhere near the Northern parts of the city, but whatever.

"Okay, guys." he called, getting their attention. "This isn't the wild, and this isn't exactly a town or whatever, so we'll have to keep you all in your balls. Well, most of you. I guess we can get away with one or two of you out . . ."

"Oh, brilliant. I was looking forward to ditching you to look at the damn Gym as well." Ice muttered.

"Didn't we already say we ain't doing the Gym challenge?" Toni checked.

"We did."

"Not to wonder what could have been if you two were normal kids." Ice corrected them. "I just wanted to go and look. You do know that it's a Flying Gym, right? That means I could go and check out the fighting styles. We're got two birds on the team anyway."

" . . . Oh." Green blinked, surprised. "I didn't expect-"

"Lemme guess, you thought I only care about myself? Yeah, I mostly do, trademark of a complete ass. But I don't want this team to get our asses kicked easily. If that Water combo move you two are trying to work out for me does anything at all, I want to try and repay that and help out with training for the rest of the team as well."

"Sorry. About thinking you only cared about yourself, I mean." Green told him.

"I can see how you'd come to that conclusion. Now, technically speaking I'm not allowed to be in a city on my own without a Trainer, so I'll just have to take a page out of your books." Ice said.

"What do you mean?" Toni asked him.

"He wants to shadow random people and pretend we belong to them." Nameless sighed. "And yes, he's dragging me along with him. Even though it's a Flying Gym. I'm regretting my life choices already."

"Details." Ice waved his claw around lazily.

"Illegal. I like it. Go on then, we'll pretend we don't know you- and please, don't let the birds get at Nameless!" Green called, as the two starters ran off.

"Eh, they'll be fine. We're doing endurance training, remember?" Toni grinned.

"I never started on Nameless though." Faceless spoke up.

"Nevermind, he's dead."

So optimistic, Green sighed.

He and Toni returned most of their pokemon. Only Sparkless- obviously- and Twin were left out. Twin instantly decided to spite Green and make a nest out of his hair.

"I keep saying you need to cut that." Toni commented, amused.

"Your hair's longer than mine." Green frowned.

"I'm a girl. What's your excuse?"

"It's messy."

"It is also very comfortable." Twin said.

"That too- get off my head."

"No."

"Wow this is so weird and I thought I was the weirdest pokemon on the entire team turns out no hahaha hey Twin poop on his head poop on his head POOP ON HIS HEAD!" Sparkles shrieked.

Even Toni had some trouble with that.

While she was trying to figure out what Sparkless had said, Green was smirking to himself. Whenever that egg hatched, it would be into a very, very strange family. Or, well, what would probably be a family at some point. Whatever.

He turned around and promptly smacked right into someone else.

"Watch where you're going!" the person snapped loudly.

"Dude, why don't you?" Toni snapped back, having spun around to see what happened. She crouched down and poked Green, sending a gentle shock into his arm so the person he'd smacked into didn't see. "Hey. You still alive or what?"

"Thanks for the consideration, and yes, I'm alive. In pain, but alive." Green told her. "My ass hurts, basically."

Toni grinned.

"If you make a gay joke I'll slice your face open."

"You know me so well." she said. Toni grabbed his arm and helped him up.

"Are you gonna give me an apology or what?" the person demanded hotly.

"What a rude human." Twin sniffed from the ground. She'd fallen off when Green had been knocked down.

Green growled quietly and looked up.

A boy- probably the same age as him and Toni but, well, several inches taller- with red eyes and black hair was standing, glaring at him with his arms crossed. Was that a cap? Why was he wearing it backwards?

Why wearing a cap backwards seemed like a cool idea to the majority of kids totally escaped Green. It just made this boy look like a total punk. Not to mention his attitude. Sheesh.

"Well?" the red eyed boy demanded again.

"Wow, you're a dick." Green told him bluntly.

"Excuse me!?"

A girl- a little bit smaller than the red eyed boy but still bigger than Toni and Green- grabbed the red eyed boy's arm and pulled him back. The glare she fixed him with was enough to melt lead, but he didn't seem to notice.

"I'm sorry, my friend-" The girl pulled a face like she didn't believe the word she'd just said. "-here happens to be an idiot. You both ran into each other, but since he's being his usual dick self, he should say sorry first. Red. Say sorry."

The boy- apparently called Red, which was fitting- scoffed. "He ran into me!" he snapped. "He wasn't even looking where he was going!"

"So apparently I've got eyes in the back of my head now." Green muttered to Toni, who snickered.

"Is that even possible hey can I check for eyes in the back of your head wow that'd be so weird on top of you being half Psychic you've also got eyes in the back of your head that's so weird-"

"Shut up." Green said.

"You talking to me?" Red snapped, suddenly right in front of him.

Green backed away at his sudden appearance. He held his hands up in front of himself, and glared at Red.

"Personal space, dude." he told Red. "And I was talking to this freak here." Green pointed at Sparkless.

"Is that a Rotom?" the girl asked, eyes wide and sparkling with something Green didn't particularly like. Hopefully she wouldn't act on that sparkle.

"Yes." Toni answered.

"Why is that a Rotom?"

"He's my partner, why else would he be a Rotom?" Toni shrugged. "So, back to this dude here-"

"Red." Green supplied.

"Back to Red being a dick." Toni continued.

"I'm not a dick, your boyfriend should just look where he's going!" Red hissed.

Toni and Green stared at him for several seconds in stunned silence. And then they broke out into laughter.

"He thinks I'm your-" Green broke off, unable to continue because he was laughing way too much.

"Bitch please, I wouldn't tap that!" Toni cackled. "Besides, he likes dick."

Red choked, and the girl suddenly looked more interested in Green than Sparkless.

"Oh, really?" she asked, grinning.

"Holy Mew, seriously? That's just . . . wrong." Red stuck his tongue out and made a disgusted face.

"He's a homophobe." the girl stage-whispered. "In case you didn't realise."

"Most assholes appear to be." Green shrugged. "I'm no stranger to assholes. So uh, about that apology . . ."

"Forget it, freak!" Red snapped. He stormed off.

The girl rolled her eyes and turned to Green and Toni. "Now that he's out of the way . . . name's Blue. I'm basically his keeper, because no one else wants to deal with the little shit. You are?"

Green glanced at Toni. Probably wasn't much point in using their fake names, that was mostly to just get their starters and pokedexes. But it didn't hurt to be cautious.

"Tommy, and this weirdo's my twin sister Phoebe." Green introduced them.

"He's the weirdo. I'm the freak. There's a difference." Toni corrected. "This is Sparkless and that's Twin!"

"They your only pokemon, or . . .?" Blue trailed off, waiting for them to fill in the blanks.

"Nah, the others're in their balls. We are in a public city after all." Green shrugged.

"BLUE, COME ON!" Red shouted from a distance.

"PISS OFF, RED!" Blue yelled back. She turned back to Green and Toni. "Yeah, anyway, gotta go. I hope we meet again, under better circumstances. Namely, when Red isn't here to ruin things. You both seem pretty cool, so . . . see you!"

She stalked after Red, and when she got near they started arguing again. Green noticed Red gesturing heatedly at him and Toni, and scoffed.

"I get this feeling that he should have been a nice person, not a dick." Toni muttered. "Dunno why. He just seems like the sort who'd be nice and not mean. Or homophobic."

"Those people are the worst." Green sighed, running a hand through his already-messed-up hair. "Blue seems cool though, right?"

" . . . You okay?" Toni asked instead, somewhat gently for a person like her.

"Yeah. Fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well . . . last time we ran into someone like Red, you kind of . . . broke." There was probably a better way to describe whatever she was saying, but she couldn't think of anything better to say at the moment.

"I told you, I'm fine. Let's go and find the pokemon centre already." Green spun around and walked off, this time actually checking where he was going.

Didn't want to run into someone like Red again, after all.

He missed Toni giving him concerned looks. Sparkless was also unusually quiet, but he didn't notice that either.

The two of them wandered around the city for a while until they found the pokemon centre. Actual clean clothes could wait, for now they needed a bed or something . . . or maybe clothes couldn't wait, because the looks the two of them- covered in mud and still sort of soaked from the rain shower yesterday- got when they asked for a room more or less told him that they were dirtier than he'd thought.

"We need to steal some clothes or something." Toni muttered, as they went into the lift to get to the second floor (rooms were on the second and third floors, healing stuff was on the first).

"Or maybe I could go out and actually buy some, we're trying to keep a low profile, remember?" Green whispered back.

"I do, yeah, but it's more fun if we steal stuff." Toni shrugged.

"Are we not going to wait for Ice and Nameless? They will not know where we are." Twin spoke up, still sitting on Green's head.

"They're not wild-born, so they'll assume we've gone to the pokemon centre." Green explained. "Or they could just follow the trail of dry mud we left. We did leave a trail, right?"

"The glare that old lady gave us a couple of minutes ago says, yeah, we did." Toni agreed. "How about we walk around in towels? That should make some people wanna bleach their brains out."

"Might gimme a chance to practise my memory-erasing skills . . ." Green mused.

"You are not erasing memories and you are also not . . . making people bleach their brains." Twin snapped.

Did she even know what bleaching someone's brain meant? Might have guessed from how Toni used it, she was a smart Pidgey.

Whatever.

Their room was pretty standard- although, as usual, Toni quickly did an electrical check for stuff like cameras or microphones or anything that could pick up whatever they said or did. She found nothing, so they let out the rest of their pokemon and sat down on the opposing beds in the room.

"So!" Toni clapped her hands together. "How should we do it?"

" . . . Do what?" Green asked.

Toni grinned at him. "Scare Red. You want revenge, right? He's a dick, what else would we do? You wanna Ghost-scare him? Do the mind thing?"

"You'll have to be more specific, the 'mind thing' could refer to any of my Psychic abilities." Green told her.

"The thing where you warp reality."

"He can do what now?" Amethyst demanded, looking up from chatting with Hopeless.

"Only for an individual." Green explained, casting a glare at Toni, who shrugged with a small smirk. "It's more or less a simple mind trick, and it's hard to explain- I can basically make someone see, hear and occasionally feel what I want them to, but so far I can only manage one person at a time."

"He's practising though." Toni informed the pokemon. "At some point he's gonna be able to warp an entire damn room or maybe even an entire city!"

"I'm worried now." Faceless chirped. "If Green can do that kind of stuff, what exactly does that mean you can do?"

"Hack into the government by literally going inside the computer, take out an entire city's lights by doing the same thing or just by short circuiting the entire thing, blow up several buildings . . . I could go on." she said.

The pokemon all gaped at her, completely stunned into silence.

"I think you've traumatised them." Green told Toni.

"Heh."

There was a knock on the door. Green quickly did a mental scan to see who was on the other side, and then gestured- the door handle moved on its own and then the door opened.

"What if there'd been someone behind us?" Ice asked, as he and Nameless made their way in. Green shut the door behind them.

"I'd wipe their memory." Green shrugged.

Ice and Nameless stared.

"Trust me, that's not the weirdest thing he can do- apparently he can warp someone's reality as well." Hopeless told them.

"Okay, so if I ever find myself missing a memory or two, I'll know what happened to it." Nameless nodded. "What about you, Toni?"

"I can blow up half a mile of buildings using pure eletricity." Toni informed them.

"And if there are any unexplained explosions, we'll know who's behind them. Now, do you wanna hear about what we saw in the Gym or not?" Ice asked.

"You have the floor." Green gestured to the middle of the room.

oooo

The Deviant in Violet was a kid. As were most of the Deviants they were trying to find, which was pretty lucky since kids took the whole 'you have superpowers congrats' thing better than adults did. Green wasn't sure why. Toni wasn't either.

Normally, like any Deviant extractions (the Agents who weren't Deviant and Neron kept trying to stop the Deviants from calling it that, but it was the best term for it), there wouldn't be many problems. Find the Deviant, which was easy since they had the name and address of said Deviant, and tell them about their abilities in the best way possible- mostly a job assigned to the older Deviants, which made Green wonder why he and Toni had been chosen.

They weren't exactly people-persons.

Anyway, normally this stuff wouldn't be an issue. 'Normally' being the key word here.

"They failed to mention the dude was the son of the fucking mayor." Toni said flatly.

The mansion in front of them- with its giant gates and walls and whatever else- stood there as if mocking them. They couldn't get in, or, well, they could get in but they didn't want to do anything to jeopardise their covers. Correction, they wouldn't go through the gates or anywhere else.

"I really should have seen this one coming." Green sighed, looking at the holographic list rising up from the DataLink's screen. It would have normally shown each Deviant they were trying to find, but Green had opened up the 'full' database on the Deviant in Violet city.

The parts where relatives of the Deviant were supposed to be were totally blank. Clearly the Psychics who'd filled the thing out didn't think they needed to know this shit.

Clearly they had been on drugs at the time, they did need to know this shit.

"So, short of breaking and entering and then becoming wanted for kidnapping, how do we get in?" Toni turned to Green.

"Search me." he said, shrugging. "Not literally. Please don't actually search me."

"Hey, I have an idea." Ice said loudly.

Green and Toni looked at him.

"Why don't we try that?" he went on sarcastically, pointing at something on the wall nearby.

It was a poster. Green frowned and wandered over to it, and then stopped when he close enough to read it. He turned to Ice.

"No." Green said.

"Why not? The way you two act, you'd think you'd love stuff like this." the Totodile snickered.

"What, what is it?" Toni demanded.

"This." Green snapped, pointing at the poster. "He wants us to do a goddamn talent show!"

" . . . I don't get it." Toni admitted.

"Why do we need to do a talent show what's in it for us is first prize like a hell of a lot of money or something what what WHAT IS IT?" Sparkless shouted.

"First prize is a thousand pokepounds . . . and a night in the mayor's house." Green told them.

"Why a night in the mayor's house?" Toni blinked.

She wasn't the only one who was confused.

"Who cares about that can we just do it so we can get the prize money holy hell!" Sparkless cheered, zipping around more randomly than normal.

"I pointed it out because it's the best shot you have at getting in without breaking in." Ice spoke up, looking amused at their varying reactions. "You could do a comedy act or something."

"Or something, we're not doing this at all." Green snapped.

Doing some sort of freakish thing in front of Arceus-knows how many people? There was probably no way they'd lose, not with their abilities (Green could easily trick the judges into giving them the best score no matter how badly they did, and Toni . . . well, let's just not go there), but he didn't fancy having people stare at him.

No, he was definitely not gonna do the stupid talent show.

Even if it was their only way of getting into the mayor's mansion legally.

Even if it was the only way they could get at the Deviant in said mansion.

No.

Hell no.

Two hours later, after he and Toni had signed up for the talent show, Green was still wondering why he'd agreed to it.

"I mean, I'm meant to be the Psychic- do you have a third type I don't know about?" he asked Toni, as they went back to their pokemon centre room. "Ice? Sparkless? Either of you a hidden Psychic?"

"As far as I'm aware, no. And before motormouth opens his mouth, he doesn't either." Ice replied smugly.

"Then how the fuck did I get talked into this!?" Green snapped.

"Shut up, will you?" Toni called from her bed. "Come over here, Skype's coming online."

Green sat down moodily and watched the fuzzing screen slowly morph into an image of their living back in the city.

Zo looked up from his Raticate, Riley, as the image sharpened.

"How long did it take for you two to call?" the man asked, grinning. "It's been, what, nearly an entire week?"

"Gimme a break, we've been busy." Toni snorted. "Can you go get Ashley?"

"What, you don't wanna chat with me first?"

"Get Ashley." Green ordered him.

"I'm like twice your age, you can't order me around. Oh well. YO ASHLEY, THE KIDS WANNA CHAT WITH YOU!"

They waited for a minute while Zo went out, Riley clinging to his back and waving his tail as a goodbye, and Ashley came in from her bedroom.

"Hey, kids." the Scotswoman greeted. "I thought you'd call before now."

"Is everyone gonna say that?" Toni wondered.

"Yes. Kiara may not, but she doesn't talk much anyway." Ashley shrugged. "So, what is it you need? Info? Firewalls cracked?"

"Is everything you people do illegal?" Ice asked.

"Oooh was that your new pokemon? Or one of them, whatever." Ashley said. "And no, not everything is illegal. Some of it's half-legal."

Ice looked startled.

"That was Ice, he's a Totodile and he's my 'starter'." Green explained. "Ice, this is Ashley. She's a Water/Flying Deviant."

"Well, that explains how she understood me." Ice muttered.

"Yeah moving on. What do you need?" Ashley asked again, bringing them back to what they actually called for.

"Oh yeah. That. Can we borrow your Chatot for a bit?" Toni asked.

OOOOOO

Renny: *gets out a shield for the flamers* I'm sorry for making Red an asshole, but there is a reason for it- this is basically what I imagine him as if Green hadn't been there to help mellow him out, and vice versa.

Green: There's also the issue of him being a homophobe.

Renny: Yes, that. I know in Redemption he loved Green, and Green was totally oblivious to that. But for the asshole personality to really shine through, I need something other than 'Red hates Green because Green ran into him by accident'. So now it's 'Red hates Green because Green ran into him by accident and also because Green's gay'.

Green: I guess it's better for his character development?

Renny: Yep. Also, for future reference, Green and Toni don't know that Red is the Kanto-Johto Champion. So, don't be shocked when they're shocked when they find out about it.

Green: And also Blue's basically Red's caretaker or something.

Renny: That too. Next chapter, the talent show! And also the reason why they're asking for Ashley's Chatot. Who doesn't have a name since she doesn't give her pokemon names. Read and review!